Saied Dai

Persian by birth, Saied Dai was born in Tehran in 1958. He began his seven years of art training at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design and subsequently The Royal Academy of Arts for his postgraduate studies.

He was invited back to the RA Schools to teach under Leonard McComb’s keepership, where drawing was seen to be the cornerstone of all the disciplines. He also taught at the Prince of Wales Institute of Architecture in Regent’s Park as well as a number of other prominent arts schools from Foundation to postgraduate level. After being elected to the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 2004, he won the prestigious Ondaatje Prize for Portraiture and the Society’s Gold Medal, followed by the Prince of Wales Drawing Award. Also an elected member of The New English Art Club, his work focuses on figure compositions, portraits, still lives and landscapes.